McCain says we're back to 'pre-surge levels' in Iraq. No we're not. 2/3 of the surge troops are still there.

UPDATE: McCain's campaign conference call for reporters is taking place as I write. And his staff is saying that McCain was actually correct about how many troops we have in Iraq because you have to take a look at his "verb tense." Seriously. They're haggling over the definition of "is," "was," and "will be."

It's kind of scary that John McCain, who keeps talking about how many trips he's made to Iraq, doesn't even know how many troops we have there. Yesterday, McCain told an audience in Wisconsin that we are back to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq.

MCCAIN: "So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels."

Actually, Mr. Magoo, two-thirds of the surge troops are still in Iraq.

Let me walk you through this.

1. Pre-surge troops levels. That's 130,000 to 135,000 troops.

2. Bush sent 30,000 or so "surge" troops to Iraq.

3. That means at full surge we had 165,000 troops in Iraq.

4. We currently have 155,000 troops in Iraq.

5. That means we still currently have 20,000 more troops in Iraq than we had pre-surge, or 2/3 of the surge troops are still in Iraq.

We're not at pre-surge levels by a long shot. Sure, the military is talking about kind-of sort-of maybe drawing down our troops to pre-surge levels in by the end of the summer (we've heard that one before). But that's not what John McCain said. He didn't say we're planning to hopefully get down to pre-surge levels a few months, assuming we can safely do so. He said he can look you in the eye and tell you today that WE ARE AT pre-surge levels. And we're not. (Though I am kind of impressed that he can look you in the eye while getting it completely wrong.)

McCain has done this a lot with regards to Iraq (though it's not clear if he's simply lying to the American people, or if McCain is just getting too old to keep his facts straight). He keeps visiting the country, then telling us things about "happy" Iraq that aren't true. Remember his old chestnut about how our commander over there travels without security? (Not true.) Then there was the time he said he was visiting markets and it was totally safe (except that he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, had 100 troops as bodyguards, and had several attack helicopters overhead). Or the time when McCain, repeatedly, got confused between the Shia and the Sunni in Iraq and Iran. I'm not sure I want Barack Obama, or any politician, visiting Iraq if all they're coming home with is misinformation. You can watch the video of McCain from yesterday for yourself, it's short and to the point. McCain has no idea what's going on in Iraq (or anywhere else, I fear):